“Raptor 1, this is Raptor 2, 3 minutes from target domed decree.”
“Raptor 2, Roger, release on target.”
“Ghost 1, this is Raptor 2, we will follow you to target.”
“Raptor 2, this is Ghost 1, Roger.”
“Moments before I stepped onto this platform, I signed executive orders that I am confirming at this moment. I have directed that the nuclear and economic base of Iran be removed as a basis of threat to the region and to this country. At this moment I have directed that JDAM delivery weapons, known as the B-2 with stealth capabilities, to use guided Massive Ordnance Penetrators, GBU-31, which we call bunker busters, and fuel-air detonations, and high-power microwave attacks to effectively destroy laboratories, hobble gasoline refineries, unhardened heretofore hardened targets, and to hobble Iran's electrical grid. Targets include the refineries at Abadan, Arak, Tehran, Isfahan, Tabrez, Shiraz, Lavan, and Bandar Abbas. The main focus of the attacks will be the Fordow underground nuclear facility near the holy city of Qom. There will be no limits on the areas of vulnerability. We cannot end the conflict by disabling Iran’s capabilities. We must destroy them.
“Iran has been at war with America since 1979, but we have not been at war with them. Of the 4000 American troops killed in Iraq, many were killed by an Improvised Explosive Device, or IED, a word new to the culture of conflict. Almost all of the IED devices and the IED deaths have been planned by, designed by, constructed by, and detonated by Iran. It will stop. After today’s Inauguration Day bombings, if any serviceman is killed and the death is traced to Iran, another Iranian asset will be vaporized, whether it is an oil platform, or the general headquarters of the Army, or a financial center in downtown Tehran. And we will do it, because we can. If Iran launches a terrorist attack aimed at America, they will lose all of their military assets, and they will be naked to their enemies for one hundred years. There will be no more sternly worded messages from the United Nations.”
“Raptor 1, this is Ghost 1. Bombs away”.
“Raptor 1, this is Ghost 2. Bombs away”.
“Raptor 1, this is Ghost 3. Bombs away”.
“Raptor 1, this is Ghost 4. Bombs away”.
“Raptor 1, this is Ghost 5. Bombs away”.
“Raptor 1, this is Ghost 6. Bombs away”.
“These decisions and orders have not come lightly. Since the day I was elected I have consulted with military and political leaders who have earned their way into the top levels of government. As you know I will ask former President James Ryan to head the Department of Defense. I have asked Michael Ronson to head the Central Intelligence Agency.”
“Raptor 1, this is Raptor 2, turning northeast to secondary target Temple of Doom.”
“Raptor 2, Roger, we have a GO on secondary target Temple of Doom. Resume your own navigation, release on target.”
"As President of this great country I will immediately know of any threat to this country, and I will be in the national command center in five minutes. The President is never in the shower. The President is never away for the afternoon. The President is always on duty, fully appraised. We have fourteen carrier battle groups. F-18’s can be scrambled in fifteen minutes. No threat to our safety is outside of the reach of this nations justified retribution.”
CHAPTER THREE
JOHN
“Morning is a new beginning. Every day has a morning.” ----Anonymous
John Trader walked towards his car in the early morning January sun. He was leaving the Berkeley apartment of a fellow student in his law class. She was beautiful, smart, and a decade younger than he was. He felt particularly frisky as he headed for an interview for his first job as a government lawyer. The rising sun sparkled off the windows of the buildings across the Bay in San Francisco, and his breath made a small cloud as he breathed the brisk morning air. His appointment with the District Attorney's Office wasn't until 10:00, but he first had to stop off at Doctor..., what was the name? He could not remember. It would be their first session. He pulled out his iPhone, looked at his calendar, and recalled the name and address. He had a gnawing dissatisfaction that caused him a low level of non-specific anxiety. He figured that if he consulted with a Psychologist or Psychiatrist he would be able to deal with it, and it would go away. At least he hoped so. He was wearing his blue suit, black shoes and dark blue socks, white shirt and a muted tie. He reached the BART station, parked his car, and waited only a few minutes before a train to the City arrived. When he got on the commuter train, he blended with the quiet crowd on their way to work, probably some office job in the City. Passengers were staring at their phones, reading a paper, dozing, or watching to see if their station was coming up soon. The earth moved people around the sun, the spinning earth moved people around in space, the BART train moved people from the East Bay to the West Bay, their legs would carry them to the places where they worked, and it was all done so silently in the morning.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE DOCTOR WILL BE RIGHT WITH YOU
“At his second bidding darkness fled, light shown, and order from disorder sprung.”
--John Milton
He found the address, the Burgeon Building, and rode the crowded elevator with arriving office workers. He got off on the Fourth Floor, which was empty and quiet, and found a door with Dr. P. Simpson, Psychologist. He entered and heard a small bell ring as he opened the door. The room was empty and there were only five chairs. This was not a volume business. A few moments later, the sliding glass window opened and a young woman looked out and said, “Are you Mr. Trader?”
John said, “Yes.”
The girl responded with the expected, “Could I have you fill out this questionnaire for the Doctor? Then the doctor will be right with you.”
“Sure,” said John. He looked at the questionnaire. It asked for the usual, Name, Address, Date of Birth, do you take medications, do you take illegal drugs, do you consume alcohol and if so, how much? He always had a problem with the last question. He had lived such a focused life for three years of law school that he quit drinking. Now that school was over, he was headed to some form of law that would require him to learn much more than he did in law school, and faster. His mind would have to stay clear and focused. He answered, “Yes, but not enough.”
When he was through with the questionnaire, he put it by the sliding window and knocked once. The window quietly opened, and the questionnaire disappeared behind the window.
Moments later the young girl opened a door leading to a place behind the sliding glass window and said, “Come with me, please.” John dutifully followed her into another small office. The office had very comfortable looking furniture, the kind one would expect in such an office. There was a chair where the Doctor would sit. The window behind the chair looked out over other office buildings in the city. The chair he was guided to was set up opposite to the doctor's chair and ten feet away. When he looked at the doctor's chair, it was a shadow against the light of the window. “Nice setup,” he thought. “I will not be able to see the Doctor very well, but I will be lit up by the light from the window.” He did not mind. He was there to discuss some things which he needed to put into perspective. He did not have the time to read the self-help books and he was going into an environment where he would have to deal with an entire new set of business and social factors. When he graduated from college he knew everything. Fifteen years later, with a new law degree, he was petrified by how much he did not know.
Lost in the reverie of his own thoughts, he did not hear the Doctor enter the room.
The Doctor was seated and said, “Mr. Trader?” There was a pause. “Uh, Mr. Trader, I am Doctor Simpson.”
John snapped out and said, “Hi, Sorry. I was just thinking. I have an interview this morning with the District Attorney's Office for a job. I just passed the bar, and this new world is kind of mind boggling.”
“I am sure it is. Mr. Trader, how can I help you today?”
“I hope you can, but I don't know how.
If I did, I would help myself,” said John.
“Well, I know I can help you with the mind boggling events, and any feelings of anxiety you might have.”
“I don't think that's it. I am going to have to deal with a lot of new people in an environment that I, frankly, am completely unfamiliar with, but I can do it. I’ve done it before,” said John.
“That’s anxiety, Mr. Trader,” said the Doctor. “It appears, to some degree, to be something I see all the time. It is generalized, certainly, and I can't pinpoint it yet, but maybe that is why you are here,” said the Doctor.
“I don't think so. I haven't necessarily got a lot of anxiety, but more like an emptiness feeling that I try to fill, but don't know how. It is strange. I've known some women, but my association with them just stops. One woman I still think about from a long time ago, still haunts my memory, but I knew her well, and it just stopped.” said John.
“Well, maybe you should tell me about yourself and the things in your life that you think have brought you here today,” said the Doctor.
“Okay,” said John. “Let me tell you some things about me, and maybe you can piece it together. Then, maybe, you can help me. One year, when I was fresh out of College, I took a week skiing in Sun Valley. I was alone, but in those days I did a lot of things by myself. I still do. I remember it was very cold when I landed at Ketchum. I got a cab to my motel, checked in, put my skis in the room, got a map of the city, and set out to find a diner. I was walking towards the village center down a back street. It was very dark that evening, and quiet, and there was no one around. I was warm, layered with lots of clothes and woolen gloves. As I was walking I heard a faint sound of music, but paid no attention. As I walked down the street the music became a little less faint, and I saw light from the edges of partially opened door. It was music that sounded like what we used to sing at church. When I came closer, I heard the sound of a single voice singing a long forgotten hymn from when I was a child. I stopped and waited by the door. I opened the door a bit and looked inside. There were twenty-five or thirty people, sitting, listening. It was some kind of church service. She sang the song confidently with grace, and presence, and purity and I felt like my heart skipped a beat. I gasped a little air. Her voice was clear and strong, penetrating my layers of warm clothing and caused a chill up my spine. She owned the music and every note moved to the next in a silky, melancholy voice. Her hands moved slowly in front of her, and her eyes closed. When she opened them he saw a sparkle of innocence in her eye. I was enslaved, I admit. If there were a way the heart could persuade the voice to sing, her heart did that for her. Her voice grasped and captured my heart, and squeezed it gently, leaving only a desire for me to be virtuous. When she sang, even the night demons stopped their work, and listened, and they were bewitched, and it took them some time to remember what they were doing. The best of the demons had no stomach for their own evil for a long time after that. At that moment I could not tell you what she looked like, but she was beautiful. The beauty of her voice never wavered when she sang another song. I could have listened forever. Then, when she finished, she sat down and a church service began. I closed the crack in the door I had opened, and went to find my diner. And I felt differently, a little excited. I guess it was something spiritual. The diner was good, and on my way back I decided to walk by the same door. It was still partially opened and I looked inside. I saw her. She was alone, straightening up folding chairs. I said, ‘Hello’. She turned around, smiled and she radiated a glow or aura that was almost beyond description. She was beautiful to me, although her face and body were not the kind you would whistle at on the street. She said, ‘Hello, come inside and get out of the cold.’ I did. I told her that I was passing by earlier and heard her singing and that I thought her voice made me feel like my heart was for something else than pumping blood. I told her there was magic in her voice that carried the listener to another place, that it was lovely, and that her voice had the power to make dance the dullest of beanbag hearts. She walked towards me, put her hand on mine, and said in a quiet voice, 'I heard you. I think I am going to come into your life and change it. Will that be okay?' My legs buckled imperceptibly. She said she would be through in a few minutes and then we could chat while I walked her home. I walked her home, and yes, we made love that night. It was the softest, slow and closest physical relationship I have had with a woman. The next morning I was still at her home. I quietly gathered my clothes. She sat in the bed, a sheet in both hands, covering her breasts. I said I had to go. She looked at me and said, 'John, I love you.' I smiled, turned and left. I went skiing.”
The Doctor asked, “Did you see her again?”
John thought silently for a moment. He felt a little uncomfortable in his stomach. He knew it would have been so much of a better ending in that sunlit morning in Idaho if he had persuaded her, with a bright smile and sunny eyes, to go with him to the slopes of Mount Baldy. In the better ending they could have danced down the slopes in the deep dry powder, sang silly songs as they took the chairlift back to the top, and stopped at the Lookout and ordered hot chocolate and laughed at the good time we were having. That night they could have dressed in faded jeans and sweatshirts worn under the heavy parkas, and gone to the best restaurant, not the diner, and had Death by Chocolate to sweeten the breath for that soon to come embrace. They could have returned then, exhausted, and made love, knowing each other so much more and so much better. But that was not the ending. Life doesn't have second acts. That's the world we live in.
John said, “I never returned to her home. I never walked by the door on the side street. I never saw her again. I don't remember her name.”
After a short pause, as he returned from a distant place in his memory, John said, “It just dawned on me now that I don't think I ever knew her name.”
“That is very telling, Mr. Trader,” said the Doctor.
“With the passage of time, now it is just an ancient evening with distant music,” John said.
“I think we should schedule next week, Mr. Trader.”
“Fine, but why did it happen the way it did?” asked John.
The doctor looked at John and said, “Sometimes, when you don't have anyone, anyone will do.”
CHAPTER FIVE
NICE TIE
“Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.” ― Coco Chanel
It had been a week earlier that John received a telephone call to schedule an interview with the District Attorney Anthony Crandon. He arrived at the government building a few minutes early, and shortly after his first session with Dr. Simpson. The building had no distinguishing features and was a world apart from the slick professionally decorated offices of the private law firms that he had interviewed. He originally planned to graduate from law school, pass the bar, and work in a prestigious law firm, make lots of money and buy a Porsche.
John sat across from Crandon. “You have some rather impressive achievements, Mr. Trader,” said Crandon.
John had graduated second in his class, just behind Sally Bloomfield. He had been unable to match her intensity during law school. She never did anything in law school but study. He was sure she slept with her law books. He was positive no one else, with or without law books, would want to sleep with her. He learned that she had a nervous breakdown two days before the bar exam and had to be hospitalized.
“Let's see. You were Associate Editor of the Law Review, Captained the team that won the National moot court competition, and did a Summer with the State Supreme Court,” said Crandon.
Crandon was overweight, almost obese. His suit was a cheap, wrinkle intense navy blue. His shirt was generic white, and his tie had to be from Goodwill, dark around the knot and thin that was stylish ten years earlier. John, on the other hand, was wearing a $900 suit from Nordstrom, a tailored shirt from Macy's and a silk tie he found at the Salvation Army. It was at least a $100 handmade tie from Winestocks that some unrepentant hapless computer programmer on Random Access Road in the high te
ch area of the city had spilled soup on. John had it cleaned and it was his favorite tie. That was John's interview outfit. It was also his only suit, and he was always faced with the dilemma of what to do if he had a second interview.
“You also did a Summer program with Bendini, Lambert and Locke. Did they offer you a position?” asked Crandon.
Bendini had offered him an extremely generous salary the first year, low interest financing on a home loan and a leased BMW. He knew he could afford a second suit after his first paycheck. They wanted him to do Contracts and Business litigation for the most prestigious law firm in the state. He was going to accept it without hesitation, but he decided to talk to a few other firms first. He told himself he deserved to find out what was out there. It was merely curiosity. He knew no one would match Bendini's offer.
His first interview with another law firm other than Bendini was uneventful. He spoke with the hiring partner, a person whose name escaped him. The hiring partner's suit, shirt and tie were tailored, possibly handmade. His desk was oak, the carpet was plush and warm, and the sofa on the side wall was a large leather baseball glove. He was clearly a baseball fan. John asked him a few questions about the firm. The partner answered openly and in detail. He explained that the law firm represented insurance companies. He described one of the more recent cases where the Plaintiff, a shopper, was suing a supermarket for an injury resulting from a glass window that was broken when a car jumped the curb and smashed into the storefront window. The Plaintiff was injured. The Plaintiff was suing, arguing that the Supermarket had a duty to insure that all windows were safety glass. The Partner explained that in researching the issues before the court, he had become an expert in the properties of shattered glass. John almost fell asleep. Then John asked him what his history was and where he and worked. The tone of the conversation changed. The Partner smiled for the first time the whole day. The Partner looked over to the right, out the window from the 21st floor, and his eyes almost twinkled. He told John how his first three years after law school had been with the Tulare County District Attorney's Office.
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